


a better fate

by jolie_unfiltrd



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - No Voldemort, But Good At Ogling Boys in Quidditch Gear, F/M, Hermione Granger is Bad at Feelings, Veela Draco Malfoy, Veela Mates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:00:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28248045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jolie_unfiltrd/pseuds/jolie_unfiltrd
Summary: When Draco Lucius Malfoy is born on an uncharacteristically gloomy afternoon in June, the first thing his mother sees is his perfection: ten fingers, ten toes, pale skin, a hearty, healthy cry, and dark eyes that flutter open and gaze at her solemnly. The second thing that Narcissa Malfoy notices, hair still mussed and sticking her to her neck from a strenuous delivery, are the wings.(Draco is a veela. His mate is Hermione Granger. This changes everything).-title from: since feeling is first by ee cummings
Relationships: Harry Potter/Theodore Nott (mentioned), Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy, Ron Weasley/Pansy Parkinson (mentioned)
Comments: 40
Kudos: 602





	a better fate

**Author's Note:**

> hi there! I've been toying with this for a bit and I think I'm finally (mostly) happy with it. I know this is different than what I normally write but the story grabbed a hold of me and wouldn't let go. 
> 
> hope you enjoy!
> 
> [beta'd by [ letterstomylove ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/letterstomylove/profile) \- all mistakes are firmly mine. thank you boo!!]

When Draco Lucius Malfoy is born on an uncharacteristically gloomy afternoon in June, the first thing his mother sees is his perfection: ten fingers, ten toes, pale skin, a hearty, healthy cry, and dark eyes that flutter open and gaze at her solemnly. The second thing that Narcissa Malfoy notices, hair still mussed and sticking her to her neck from a strenuous delivery, are the wings.

Delicate, feathered, barely-there wisps of wings - but there, nonetheless.

It is a credit to her upbringing that she barely raises an eyebrow, but simply swaddles him loosely in an heirloom blanket from her grandmother and presents him to her husband with a soft smile on her rose-tinted lips. Lucius cradles him gently in his arms, but nearly drops him at his wife's murmur. "Mind the wings, dear. Isn't he a love?" 

It is a credit to _his_ upbringing that he does not rear back in shock, or widen his eyes dramatically, but simply resolves to look through the old Malfoy journals kept in his desk and to send an owl to his father. He was aware they had veela heritage but this... he hadn't been expecting this.

"He's perfect," he replies, tracing a manicured finger across his son's cheek as he settles next to his exhausted beloved on the bed, pressing a tender kiss to her forehead. "Thank you."

"Anything for you, darling."

-

Though it is a little-known fact, the mate-pairings of creatures and beings are recorded in an official ledger, tucked in a filing cabinet behind a locked door in an oft-forgotten-about side room in the Bonding Department. Malfoys have, historically, made it their business to know about such hidden things, even things that are meant to appear transparent but are actually hidden (or, in some cases, things that are meant to appear hidden but are actually transparent, but the advantages in such cases are so small that they hardly bother). And so, when Draco Malfoy is a year old, Lucius disillusions himself, makes his way down to the Bonding Department, ducks into a side room, unlocks a door, and rifles through the filing cabinet for the ledger.

It's not that he is hoping that the boy will have a mate, more that he knows it to be more of a biologic inevitability. Lucius Malfoy does not track in hope, he tracks in facts, and the fact is that his son will not be alone.

This is why, when he comes across his son's name in the ledger, he heaves a sigh of relief - it would not be there if his mate did not exist or wasn't born yet - until he continues reading.

_Draco Malfoy, Veela, 1 year of age - mated with - Hermione Granger, Muggleborn, 1 year of age._

While it is a little-known fact that the ledger exists in the first place, only Lucius Malfoy will ever know that he completely lost consciousness at the sight of who his son's mate would be. He comes to only a few moments later, cheek pressed into the cold linoleum floor and goblin-silver-topped cane making a rather painful imprint on his ribs, determined to never confess to a single soul that he'd quite literally lost his mind for a moment. 

He stands up, brushes himself off, and wards the ledger against any eyes but his own.

It seemed that some changes would have to be made.

-

When Lucius confides in Narcissa on the very eve of their son's fanciful first birthday party (truly, more of a soiree for the parents of the children who would all be in Slytherin together, a reason to drink expensive champagne from the Malfoys' vineyards, to make alliances and build trust among new friends), she pales but recovers almost immediately.

"A mate!" Her eyes sparkle as she clutches her hands together over his bassinet, delighted that he will not be alone, he will have his love. "Oh, darling, I'm so happy for him."

"It may be... difficult for them." The current and past political climate is implied but his dear wife, blissful at the idea of her son's love story and already likely planning a wedding to rival their own, simply fixes him with a shrewd stare.

"We ought to make it less difficult for them, if we can."

It is not less than an order from his queen, and he accepts it thusly.

And so, the Malfoys begin their transformation.

-

By the time Draco is three years old, he can extend and hide his wings at will, and though they aren't quite strong enough to support his weight, that doesn't stop him from catapulting himself from all manner of heights and terrorizing the household House Elves. Narcissa starts to offer them vacation days, and rotation schedules so that they don't exhaust themselves just trying to keep the heir alive.

By the time he is five years old, he has figured out that he can bat his eyes at anyone in the vicinity and they will make him chocolate cake. It takes many, many talks about responsibility and what is right and wrong before he stops.

(Lucius hadn't even realized what was going on until Narcissa flipped on the lights in the twilight hour to find her dignified, poised husband covered in flour and frosting a double-layered chocolate cake.

"I haven't seen you since I sent you off to tuck him in." She had noted, with no small amount of amusement, that their little dictator had asked for a chocolate cake but then had fallen asleep on the bar stool, slumped on the countertop and snoring lightly.

"I..." Lucius hadn't been able to answer, blinking out of his daze and choosing, instead, to place a light dot of frosting on his wife's nose).

By the time Draco is seven years old, the claws have come out in full force when he is having a hard time reining in his emotions, and it is at this point that Lucius realizes why so many of his lessons growing up as a Malfoy centered around control - control of his emotions, taking care not to show them to others, working to keep every vulnerable part of himself under wraps. He resolves to teach his son a better way - to allow him to be soft in ways that his father never did - but the foundation is the same: breathing and mindfulness.

So, the two of them are often found in the gardens, mid-morning, sitting cross-legged on a quilt together, breathing in and out. In and out.

By the time he is nine years old, he has begun to listen to the stories that the adults mutter above his head, and to the fanciful tales that Pansy brings when she comes over to play, and he asks about his mate for the first time.

(They don't exactly hide that he is a veela, but it is not advertised, either. Their close circle knows to keep it under wraps, and everyone else simply does not need to know).

"Mum," he barges into her dressing room as she is preparing for afternoon tea, fixing her lipstick with a glance in the mirror and a well-practiced charm. "Do I have a mate?"

"Why do you ask, my little dragon?"

"Pansy said veelas always have mates and I'm a veela so do I have one?"

"Take a breath, dearest," Narcissa says as she stands and cradles his face in her hands, awed that he is growing up before her eyes, grateful that she was given this son to keep close, to watch as he becomes a man.

He takes a quick breath, tiny chest expanding and contracting with a huff, impatiently waiting for her answer.

"Yes, Draco, you have a mate."

She takes a breath, preparing to tell him who it is - but he has already raced off to tell Pansy she was right. A fond smile passes over her face as she listens to his footsteps thundering down the hall - then a pause as his wings take him aloft - then footsteps once more. He will miss that, surely, once he goes to Hogwarts, her wild beautiful boy.

They ought to tell him, she thinks. But what is the point?

He'll meet her soon enough.

-

The Dark Lord attempts a return in a world where his only followers are the fanatics, the crazed, in Azkaban with minds drifting into smoke. He makes some headway - his name still means power, in some circles. But in the places and people he had once called refuge, in the Malfoys, in Nott Sr., in the elder Parkinsons - he finds no footing. 

Years of careful political maneuvering, years of rearranging the power sphere and financial machinations and of course, the world of power and subjugation and prejudice still exists. But the grip it once held on people, that does not, and many of those who graduated from Hogwarts with a green-and-silver stripe on their robes, or who fell into them for the things and positions and gains that they could not make in traditional ways, find themselves hurtling towards decency and middle grounds and compromises much faster than they had anticipated. 

And it all began at a tea party when the youngest generation, playing in the large fields behind Malfoy Manor after a series of private lessons on etiquette and Latin and charms, was only three years old. 

Narcissa Malfoy had quietly cleared her throat and set down the delicate teacup with careful movements, fingers clenching in her lap at her nervousness, though outwardly she was as calm and placid as the Great Lake on a perfect winter's day. "Lucius and I would like to announce to all of our friends that we have discovered who Draco's mate could be." 

(Narcissa was born into a world where her love was not her choice, and though she was lucky and her father had been fairly considerate, she vowed never to deny another woman the choice to marry who she loved. Not after seeing how the world had treated her sister, Andromeda. She had chosen to write to her sister after Draco was born, when she was lost and lonely and in need of a friend - and though the first ten had come back unopened, unanswered, the eleventh letter had included a picture of Nymphadora Tonks, a sweet toddler with ever-changing hair. 

So, she emphasized to her husband the importance of language, of choice, of offering the girl things and and relationship that she is under _no obligation_ to accept. She was quite firm on that point). 

As expected, there had been some raised eyebrows, some shared glances and some stiffening of spines from the Parkinsons and the Bulstrodes, as if wondering if it might be their children, and the Notts and the Zabinis, as if wondering the same but far more reservedly. (A male mate would not have been unheard of, but unusual for these families who still prided themselves on passing down the family name, on heirs and spares and at the moment, heirs were all they had). 

"Oh?" was all that was said, from Lady Parkinson as she delicately snagged the last lavender scone. 

Lucius and Narcissa had exchanged a glance - best to get on with it, before anyone was a choking liability, had implied Narcissa's quick flash of her gleaming eyes - no, my dear, after you, I insist, had argued Lucius's tightening around the corners of his mouth - a flare of Narcissa's nostrils had been enough to persuade him. 

"She will attend Hogwarts with the children," the Nott and Zabini elders lowered their shoulders by a centimeter, "and she is a muggle-born." 

Silence had dominated the table for an entire minute. 

"Well," said Lord Nott, finally, "isn't that wonderful." 

"Indeed," Narcissa had agreed with a firm smile on her lips. 

"I expect that we will all make her feel welcome, when the time comes?" Lucius had asked, though it wasn't a question so much as a demand of respect to his future daughter-in-law (hopefully). 

"Naturally," Lady Zabini had purred, her gaze askance - fixated on the children rolling around in the grass under the strict supervision of Mippy, the house elf charged with their care for the afternoon. 

"Does Draco know?" 

Narcissa shook her head at Lady Bulstrode. "No. He will have enough to think about" - as if on cue, the Malfoy heir's wings swept him away from his friends as a breeze blew in, and his delighted giggle reached the table, prompting fond smiles, "until then, I believe." 

"Muggle-born, hmm?" Lord Bulstrode had muttered, quietly, looking down into his tea. Things were changing, that was certain. 

As much as the Slytherin crowd prized subtlety, the look on Narcissa's face- fierce as a mother lion and twice as deadly- was anything but. 

A new world order, then.

On the whim of a mate of a Malfoy. 

The whim of a mate that didn't even know about him, yet. 

The gathering elders harrumphed and sighed and inwardly rearranged their finances and investments and prejudices, and the world began to fall in line.]

It is not easy, and it does take time, but by the time Draco Malfoy leaves for Hogwarts, he is not the prejudiced, pointy-faced boy whose entire personality seems to be composed of elitism and snobbery and wealth. Pansy and Millicent do not look down on others for their blood, merely for their taste in shoes and sports teams. Theo and Blaise, conniving and quiet in every universe, have fallen in as Draco's best friends and they walk side by side, with no one taking precedence over the other. Vincent and Greg have paired up purely due to their shared interest in muggle mystery novels.

In this universe, Draco Malfoy is simply an eleven-year-old boy with a secret. 

(The Slytherin first years all know, of course, have known since before they could speak - but they'd also known, implicitly and after direct instructions from their parents, that one does not simply talk of a friend's veela status. It was uncouth and gossipy and meant to be shared in its own time).

He does not extend a hand to Harry Potter, does not compel him to be friends with the "right sort" as he is not lonely, here with all of his best friends. 

The only lifelong animosity that is born in the first year of Hogwarts is the one between Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger. 

\- 

Hermione Granger is used to being right, all of the time. So when she receives a letter, by _owl_ , charmingly enough, informing her that she is a witch, a smug smile passes across her face before she dutifully delivers it to her parents. She had known she wasn't quite normal, could do things no one else could. So she is a witch - marvelous - and there is an entire school for learning how to be a witch or wizard and she can have a _familiar_ and oh, it is better than she _dreamed_. 

(Admittedly, her dreams had been rather dreary - her parents decide that they don't know what to do with her, after all, and send her off to a finishing school meant to iron out all of her kinks and flatten her unruly curls and force her into their mold of being a lady). 

(Hermione had had dreams, since she was small, about a boy with wings - but she never understood them and her parents told her they were fantasies, what fun lovely stories, and dismissed them). 

Crookshanks is an easy sell - an adorable kitten with a scrunched-up face that seems immediately to favor her over all others. Hermione had grown up with few friends, fewer still once she eliminates the cousins who had been obligated to hang out with her from the list, and finds that she wants a friend, even one with long orange fur that will cling to all of her new knee-high socks, even one with a bit of a temper, even one who is demanding and loud and cleverer than any other cat she'd ever known. 

Professor McGonagall takes her to Diagon Alley for robes and books and supplies, and her no-nonsense attitude, prim mannerisms and keen intelligence provide her young charge with a new idol, a new role model. 

Hermione has high hopes for Hogwarts, for learning and exploring and discovering what magic is, what it can do, and for finding others like her, others who want to be friends - but when she gets on the train, it is too easy to revert to the personality that she'd clung to throughout grade school: intelligent, slightly abrasive, nearly condescending but not quite. She could be warm, could be friendly, she was sure of it, she just wasn't quite sure… how. The others made it seem so effortless, so easy to sit down and become friends. She is roped into helping Neville find his frog, and this gives her the opportunity to briefly meet almost all her classmates. A pair of boys in the furthest compartment catch her eye - there is a loneliness in the dark-haired boy's bright green eyes that mirrors her own, an unfamiliarity with this world, and she tries to keep her reaction calm when he introduces himself. The gangly boy with the ginger hair fails this task, so Hermione offers Harry a sympathetic smile and a brief wave. 

On the way back, she raps smartly on the door of a laughing group of first-years, and though they aren't unfriendly, neither do they invite her in - why would they, where would she _sit_ , it was altogether too crowded anyway - but something, or rather, someone catches her eye. There is a boy in the center of the group, pale blonde hair gleaming and grey eyes nearly silver as they fixate on her, taking in every inch of her face as if he'd known her, once, long ago. He seems... familiar, to her as well, though it was impossible, of course, and she didn't believe in impossible things.

(Or, she didn't used to, but now she was a witch on a train to a magical school, so perhaps she could reconsider her stance). 

She blinks and the spell is broken. The boy goes back to laughing with his friends, and she continues down the corridor, keeping her eyes out for a lost toad. 

\- 

Harry is the first to seek her out, after his quietly disastrous but ultimately not eventful sorting, and they sit together at the Gryffindor bench, surrounded by a gaggle of Weasleys that are both too loud and comforting in their clamor. If it is too loud, she reasons, no one will notice if she is too quiet, or if she says the wrong thing, or slips up somehow, in the rules of how to be a person which she has never quite completely managed to understand or execute. She and Harry sit side by side, marveling at the instantly appearing food and the way it seems to instantly disappear into Ron's mouth. It is abhorrent, and they look to each other and laugh. "Wha-?" says Ron, around a mouthful of mashed potatoes, and they shrug. 

Years later, she will profess Harry Potter to be her first true friend, and he will smile at her, beaming, in the same way he has since first year - with open acceptance of all that she is, and all that she could be. 

(Harry hasn't really had friends before either, you see, and all he had known from interacting with Dudley Dursley was that he did not want to be a friend like him, mean and judgmental and cruel. And so, when he sees the girl on the train with the lost look in her eyes, hiding behind mountains of curls and a bossy tilt to her chin, he tries to actually _see_ her, and decides that whoever she is, she must be as lonely as him, and resolves to be friends with her). 

\- 

Hermione, with an aching need to prove herself, and Draco, with a burning desire to learn all he can, (though of course, the two drives are interchangeable for both), tie for first place in Transfiguration.

At this point, she figures it to be mere coincidence. But then, they tie in Defense Against the Dark Arts, Charms, _and_ Potions. With each class that they attend on the final day before the winter holidays, Hermione's hair grows ever larger before, at the last hour, it nearly seems to be sparking from the end and even Harry and Ron are keeping her at a cautious distance as she fumes. 

They scurry out of class after being dismissed by Professor Snape, and by happenstance, she glances back to see him, Draco Malfoy, a boy that had hardly been on her radar except to note that he frequented the library often, surrounded by his friends, his tie loose and a boyish smile on his face. 

But then, of course, she catches his eye and this, this is where he makes his mistake: rather than smiling, or offering a congratulations, the Malfoy in him takes over, and he smirks. 

He _smirks_. 

She seethes and rues his name and resolves to beat him the following term. 

(They tie for nearly every class for six years running). 

-

Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy do not intend to tell their son about the identity of his mate.

Not at first. 

They have done all the research that they can obtain quietly, have read all of the old family journals from the ancestral Malfoys, and it doesn't seem that keeping her identity a secret will do the pair of them any harm. Perhaps, they muse, it will even give them a chance to get to know each other without the pressure.

But parents know their children, in most cases, and Narcissa and Lucius have devoted the last eleven years of their lives to knowing their son, and when he writes home first year and every letter is filled with her name and her academic prowess and her terrifying glare and her massive hair and her cat who, for some reason, has taken a liking to him - ~~~~

They watch, they listen, and they change their plans, just slightly.

Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy pull Draco aside during his fourth Christmas home from Hogwarts. They sit in the formal sitting room (the one with lavender walls and with an excellent view of the gardens, though of course right now, he can barely see through the windows for the massive pine tree that sits in front, decked out in lights and glass ornaments and shimmering ribbon). (It is good to be home).

"My dearest dragon," Narcissa begins, sipping delicately from her tea, "it's time that we discuss your mate."

"My mate?" Draco looks puzzled, and his parents, with admirable restraint, do not roll their eyes.

All of the letters about Hermione Granger this and Hermione Granger that and _mother_ she's besting me and _father_ she looks cold with that scarf and so may I please have Grandfather's journal from his Transfiguration Mastery and would you send me that thick woolen scarf –

Lucius was surprised the boy hadn't figured it out already. He'd known from the first letter: _I saw this girl on the train, and I felt like I knew her, somehow. Have we ever met the Grangers?_ But, youth did not have all the wisdom, merely most of the enthusiasm.

Draco peers between them suspiciously. "You know who it is?"

Lucius allows a smile to eke onto his polished face. "Of course."

"And you didn't tell me? How long have you known?"

"Just a while, dear," Narcissa soothes, shooting Lucius an imperious glare until he nods and agrees with a benevolent smile.

"Who is she?"

"Draco," Lucius chides at his son's impatient tone, though he can well understand the cause. "Before we discuss _who_ she is, we should discuss that there are certain... rules about how one must behave around one's mate." 

Draco's eyes narrowed, perhaps ready to argue that of course he knew how to behave, he wasn't a _child_ , after all, but Lucius continued. 

"She may be your mate, but it is her choice whether or not to accept that bond with you. You cannot coerce her or try to persuade her in any way - indeed, the very nature of your bond with her will prevent you from even attempting - but as you grow older, as you come of age..." He trailed off, fingers drumming against his thigh as he looked to his wife with slightly widened eyes.

"What your Father is attempting to say," Narcissa said calmly, placing her teacup onto the saucer, "is that veelas come into the maturity of their magic slightly earlier than their wizarding counterparts, and so do their mates. This doesn't truly have any legal ramifications, but physical ones." A faint blush began to stain her cheeks, but she soldiered on, ever the mother, ever the warrior. "Any touch between you will prompt a... flare in the bond, and a spike in desire that will not pass until you have consummated the bond."

"A spike - _consummated_ \- but -" Draco was flummoxed and sputtering as he tried to understand.

"It may be prescient to avoid touching Miss Granger altogether, until you've had a chance to become close and explain the bond," Lucius attempted to explain, less than helpfully, and only cognizant of his mistake once his wife shot him a viper's glare, once he realized his son was staring at him, mouth agape and eyes wide.

"Granger?!"

 _Now you've done it,_ implied Narcissa's haughty glance.

Lucius looked down, guilty as charged, into his perfectly warmed tea that suddenly had ice cubes floating in the middle. He suppressed a snort as his wife allowed the corners of her pale pink lips to curl up just slightly.

The trio sat in silence for a moment as Draco tried to process this rather overwhelming information: here's your mate, here's who she is, and for the love of god, do _not_ touch her once you've come of age if you don't want to be consumed into a lust that ignores logic.

"When do veelas come of age?" he finally asked, in a slightly strangled voice.

"Just a year earlier, darling."

"Mother, that's only two years away!"

Draco leapt up from his chair in an uncharacteristic display of emotions (but, it should be said, a characteristic flair for the dramatics) and started to pace. "That means I only have two years to let her know about - about - our bond, that I'm a veela, that she's my mate - oh my god, _Hermione Granger_ is my mate - and she's - and she - and I -"

He started to hyperventilate and Narcissa could see him rolling his shoulders, as if trying to keep the wings contained, a habit he’d not managed to shake, not yet.

"Two years is plenty of time, Draco, I'm sure you'll figure it all out together."

Draco shot his father a glare for the smug grin across his face, before turning back to his softly smiling mother. 

"Thank you for tea and for the... information. I think I will go flying now."

With that, he took off at a brisk walk for the back gardens, yanking off his jumper and his button-down as he did so.

A few moments later, the elder Malfoys caught a glimpse of their cherished son swirling and diving and gliding across the air currents behind the Manor.

"He seems pleased," Lucius said, with a wry grin, just as they caught a loud _whoop_ from the outside.

"Quite," Narcissa murmured, picking up another scone and glancing fondly out the window.

"Besides, two years is plenty of time for him to talk with her."

"Plenty of time," she replied.

It was not, as it turned out, quite enough time.

-

In the two years that follow, unlikely friendships form all throughout Hogwarts, most notably: Ron Weasley and Pansy Parkinson, who debate the pros and cons of various Quidditch teams until they are both red-faced and panting and storm off in opposite directions, or Theodore Nott and Harry Potter, who become thick as thieves as they plot mischief and play pranks and are generally attached at the hip, or Millicent Bulstrode and Lavender Brown, who started working on a joint project in Charms and never really stopped being together. Neville and Pansy trade tips on Herbology, Millicent and Ginny go out shopping together in Hogsmeade, and even Blaise has been trying to woo Parvati for at least six months, not realizing that it is Padma who he would really like to date.

(Hermione does, in fact, have a bet on when Theo and Harry will get together. Two galleons if it’s in the week before graduation - she is well familiar with Harry's flair for the dramatic and can only envision how he’ll save up a confession until he does something ostentatious, like kiss Theo on stage at graduation, but she is trying to balance her knowledge of Harry and the growing desperate longing that is ever too apparent in Theo’s eyes).

(Draco is completely oblivious to the burgeoning romance between Theo and Harry - it is something that seemed so unlikely, years ago, that even his perceptive mind cannot quite come to terms with what the glances between the two of them mean).

(He will eventually come to his senses, place a late bet, win twenty galleons, and be tackled by his friends).

But what inevitably results is this: Hermione and Draco's friend groups overlap, mesh, intertwine until they are inseparable.

What inevitably results is: the lessening of the enmity that Hermione feels towards Draco - mingled, confusingly enough, with respect for his intelligence and a growing admiration of the way his face could be thought to be handsome in certain lights at certain times of day.

He doesn’t seem to detest _her_ either, any longer, but merely looks at her with an infuriatingly calm gaze, sometimes with a hesitant smile on his lips, as if he might want to be friends.

If he asked, she wouldn’t be sure what her answer would be, not anymore.

-

Draco tries to tell her about everything approximately half a million times. Maybe more. He approaches her in the library, but instead of saying, "oh, by the way, I'm a veela and you're my mate," he asks her about the book she's reading for Transfiguration and did she really find it useful because he hadn't been sure, based on the way it referenced the volume they were reading in Arithmancy.

He notices that she often reads in the stands during quidditch pick-up games, and nearly gets knocked off his broom as he contemplates ways to be closer to her.

He lounges on the couch in the Slytherin common room bemoaning his lack of progress so often that Pansy actually forbids him from doing so; instead, she kicks him out and threatens that if he doesn't tell Granger, she will.

(It is an empty threat, but at least he stops groaning... for a while).

He takes up jogging in the mornings to work off some excess energy, and as Granger is an early-riser, he will sometimes join her at the breakfast table for quiet companionship over coffee and scones. It is the absolute highlight of his day, even if they don't speak a word. Warmth blooms in his chest at her nearness, at the small sighs and huffs she makes as she reads tomes that rival a small giant in weight. After two months of this, they begin to have casual conversations - just snippets of this, a smidge of that, until she looks up with a kind, open smile as he approaches one morning and he realizes he is _so_ fucked.

Either he tells her or she learns about being his mate - and either way, she'll hate him, won't she? For taking away her choice? For making her an outcast, an oddity, bound to him from birth without having any say in the matter?

He pales and backs out of the Great Hall.

She _will_ hate him, he is sure of it.

And then he will die.

(It is at this point that Pansy Parkinson begins to send concerned letters to Narcissa Malfoy. Narcissa simply sighs and writes back that the Malfoy men have always been a dramatic lot, and he'll figure it out eventually.

She hopes).

-

Draco’s inner veela sometimes feels like a small cat that he keeps locked inside his chest - it will purr at Granger's close proximity, hiss when she seems displeased with him, and curl up happily when he thinks about a life at her side.

And sometimes, it feels like a mighty jungle cat has taken possession of his every movement. When she goes on a date with McLaggen, he spends the evening pacing and muttering to himself until Theo shoves a calming draught into his hands and tricks him into taking it.

-

Hermione Granger, in those two years, found herself in a bit of a conundrum. A quandary, if you will.

A downright pickle.

Because the boy she had loathed for the last five years, who had come neck and neck with her on every assignment, who was just as likely to be Head Boy as she was Head Girl, the boy who had smirked at her and teased her, the boy who was _liked_ by so many of her friends -

well, as it turned out, he looked rather fetching in his quidditch uniform. A ruddy flush on his pale cheeks, windswept hair, and the tight pants that, honestly, made basically everyone look five times more attractive (she'd once found herself admiring Marcus Flint, for god's sake) but did shamelessly complimentary things for Draco's lean physique. She hadn't known that there was anything to be appreciated about a boy's backside until she watched him soar on his broom after the Slytherin vs. Ravenclaw match, thighs displaying rather impressive prowess.

And even worse than that, he had started to approach her, more than ever before, rubbing the back of his neck and asking her about what she was reading, did she enjoy the match (of _course_ she did, _aesthetically_ speaking, you downright _tosser_ ), what were her thoughts on the Charms assignment - and did she have any good books to recommend about the intersection between charms and potions, because he'd read Scrumpen's and honestly, it was terrible (it was admittedly _quite_ terrible).

Hermione - always so certain, always so sure - felt unsteady when she looked at him, out of the corner of her eye. Like the ground was shifting under her feet, like her foundation was being made anew, and it was infuriating.

It was also intoxicating.

She flushed when he spoke to her, she avoided his eyes as she'd developed a rather annoying habit of getting lost in their depths, she felt a peculiar heat in her lower belly that she'd previously only noticed when reading Lavender's salacious novels (stolen, read at night by wandlight and returned by morning with a whole _host_ of new ideas about romance and love-making and all that nonsense) whenever Draco turned that particular blinding grin fully in her direction.

It seemed that she'd developed a bit of a crush on Draco Malfoy, her former (and current?) nemesis, and she wasn't sure how to handle it, not at all.

He spent a few months during their sixth year eating breakfast with her after his morning jog (during which time she valiantly did not feast her eyes upon his person), and just when she'd started to feel hopeful that maybe, he'd want to be friends and maybe _maybe_ , after a while, he might like her too - he had disappeared.

And completely avoided her attempts at eye contact or overtures of tentative friendship for the rest of the year, turning a corner and rolling his shoulders. Once, she’d sat down next to him on the couch, and he had abruptly stood and announced he was going for a jog. At 8. In the evening.

But she does her best to put it from her mind (she does not succeed at all, but she pretends well-enough), until the gloriously sunny afternoon in the summer before their seventh and final year at Hogwarts, just before Malfoy’s birthday. (She did not _want_ to know his birthday, but it was inevitable, with Pansy as one of her friends, and yes, she had gotten him a present, but it didn’t _mean_ anything).

(It was a lovely, dragonhide journal with a custom quill that she’d ordered months ago).

Hermione opens her letter, and squeals with unanticipated delight at the Head Girl badge that falls neatly into her hand. (She had expected it, of course, but seeing the rewards of her years of laboring and effort is just so _wonderful_ she can hardly keep from spinning around in joy).

But she is not alone - she is at the Burrow, and the group of teenagers stopped their rowdy game of quidditch-football-in-the-air at the sound of her unmitigated happiness.

And because she is not alone, because their friend groups are now so intertwined it is just one solitary group, because he is there -

Hermione watches as Draco Malfoy opens his envelope, as the Head Boy badge falls into his hand, as he glances to her, a wide smile on his stupidly handsome face, and she thinks of the shared common room and the shared lavatory and she offers him a tentative smile in return.

His grin grows wide and she feels a flush steal across her cheeks as their friends plot to take advantage of their positions and she has the most intriguing and irritating feeling that she’d like to see him smile like that over and over again.

-

Things go perfectly, for a time.

Draco is well-organized, and Hermione is ruthlessly efficient.

Draco discovers he rather likes it, watching Hermione tell everyone what to do, and that his inner veela would _really_ like to investigate that further. Privately.

(Fine, he admits to himself, he means in a sexual manner. Being a teenage boy is difficult enough, he assumes, but the added weight of an un-tethered veela bond is going to drive him batty).

Hermione discovers that he, inexplicably, smells like apples, all the damn time - and her sneaky perusal of his shampoo in their shared bathroom has given her no clues as to its origins.

-

The professors spend time at the Head Table examining the interactions between the seventh years that year, placing bets and making observations and generally amusing themselves in their favorite way.

“Do you think he’s told her yet?” Severus mutters out of the corner of his mouth as he picks at his English breakfast.

Minerva scoffs. “Absolutely not.”

“I’m surprised someone else hasn’t told her, at this point,” Filius chirps up as he picks out another scone. “I didn’t think that Ms. Parkinson would be able to keep that secret secure for this long.”

Severus and Minerva exchange a raised eyebrow, and an inconspicuous handshake under the table. They have quite a lot riding on this particular bet, and also, with the way the seventh years get along (which, of course, prompted the younger students to follow in their example), they’re a bit bored.

(Besides, that bottle of McNaginewt’s whiskey is meant to be theirs).

-

“Ms. Parkinson,” Snape drones as they finish double Potions with the Gryffindors, “stay behind for a moment.” He pauses before adding. “Please.”

Pansy walks up to his desk, pushing her dark hair behind her ears with perfectly manicured hands, trying to hide her confusion. Snape waits until the classroom is empty, and the footsteps have faded from the hall.

She raises an eyebrow as the dark-eyed man looks at his hands folded on his desk, considering how to begin and debating between several stances, before finally deciding on honesty. Or, well, his brand of honesty, anyway.

“It’s a surprise to the staff that Ms. Granger has not yet deduced the reason for Mr. Malfoy’s incessant orbit around her person.” His sneer is hardly a sneer at all and could almost be called a smirk from certain angles.

Pansy did her best to hide her confusion, though she’d had a similar conversation with both Narcissa Malfoy and Blaise last week.

“Perhaps she needs an outside source to help corroborate her information,” he offers, and squashes his gleeful smile as the Parkinson heiress’ eyes light up in understanding.

“Understood, sir.”

-

Hermione, in a rare moment of self-proclaimed slacking off (and everyone else's version of simply relaxing on a Sunday afternoon), had opted to lug her latest leisure read to the lowermost Quidditch stands on a glorious Sunday afternoon in October. The air is crisp, and the lower stands are sheltered from the wind that the others practicing above seemed to revel in.

She shakes her head at the antics of Harry and Theo, daring each other to greater heights of stupidity. Ron appears to be attempting some strange maneuvers that she'd never understand for the life of her - _why_ would _anyone_ dangle from their brooms in such a manner? The lithe form of Draco Malfoy snags her attention, as it was wont to do, lately, and she allowed herself a brief reprieve from her novel to admire the wind in his hair and the muscles in his forearms and the - 

"Noticed, have you?" Pansy's voice is wry and amused as she plunks down next to Hermione, a wicked grin playing across her painted lips.

"Who?"

Pansy rolls her eyes. "Draco."

"Oh."

"Oh? Is that really all you have to say?"

"I - I suppose he's rather fit," Hermione admits, quickly, knowing from Friday night girls’ night experience that Pansy would needle and pick until she had what she wanted and it was much less embarrassing to just confess things straight out. Being friends with Pansy was simple, that way. Honest.

But the dark-haired girl merely shrugs, as if Hermione’s statement was no revelation at all. "I wonder how much of that is the veela appeal, though, you know?"

Hermione feels, suddenly, rather dizzy - as if she is the one sitting on a broom and leaning over the ledge, just about to free-fall. "What?"

"You didn't know?" Pansy sounds simply curious, but the twinkle in her eyes tells a different story. It’s a shame that Hermione is too busy trying not to look at Draco to notice the mischief there, too busy dissecting all of the things she's ever known about him, felt about him, in her mind. "Yeah, he's a veela. First one to present in his family for generations. That's why he's so...." Pansy waves her hand around vaguely.

"Oh," Hermione sighs, relieved and somehow slightly disappointed that there was a rational explanation for the way she'd been feeling, as of late. "So that's why -"

"Why what?" Pansy scoots closer on the bench, unwilling to miss a detail of whatever mystery Granger thinks she’s solved (but so clearly hasn’t).

"Well, it all makes sense now, doesn’t it? Veela have a magnetism to them, which explains the pull and the dizziness and the – the attraction and –“ Hermione breaks off, a pretty blush staining her cheeks. "Well, never mind all that. It's just good to know there's an explanation."

Pansy is oddly silent, and when Hermione chances a glance her way, she sees Pansy hide a smile with a smirk. "I just meant that's why he's so pretty. The rest of it... that's all you, Granger."

And with that, she leaps to her feet, shouting at Ron for another daredevil stunt he'd pulled in the air, trying to go after the practice Quaffle, leaving Hermione to stare at her book without reading a word, mind-spinning, and with the fervent need to go to the library.

Books would have the answers.

-

Meditation has done wonders to help Draco rein in his inner veela, flying even more so - but do you know what makes it incredibly difficult to do so?

How _delectable_ Hermione Granger looks in short skirts.

Draco nearly falls off his broom when she crosses her legs in the stands. He decides it would be prudent, responsible even, for him to try to monitor the activities of Theo and Harry rather than die by falling from his broom before he’s even gotten to tell the witch the truth.

And so, naturally, he misses the entire exchange.

-

Books do _not_ have the answers.

It turns out that being a veela is an intensely private experience, especially a male veela – and the few references that she can find are impossibly short, barely contain any information at all – yes, fine, they’re blond and from France, what _else_? – and reference journals that are only lodged in family libraries.

Hermione valiantly resists the urge to write to Mrs. Malfoy, requesting private journals from their family’s history, reasoning that it would be impolite to do so before she’s even spoken to Draco about it.

It takes her nearly two months to work up the nerve.

(She throws away no less than seven drafted letters to Mrs. Malfoy in the meantime).

-

Draco has not avoided her, per se. In fact, he's been almost... friendly, since the start of the year - but after Pansy's grand reveal of his secret, all Hermione can think about is the way he doesn't quite meet her eyes, though she can feel his gaze on her from across the room at any given time. Or the way he will flush if she tries to stand next to him, inhaling sharply and eyes flashing silver - how had she never noticed that before? - before moving away from her. Or how he knows how she takes her tea, how she makes her breafast porridge, how he'll slip an apple onto her desk in the first class of the day if she studied through breakfast by accident (again).

It's a Friday night in late November when she can't hold in her questions any longer, her protests, her simmering annoyance at being treated differently than anyone else, after another Friday night patrolling with enough space between them to fit a troll.

(And she would know _exactly_ how much space that is). 

"You know, Malfoy," she says, as she slams the kettle onto the stove-top and ignores the water sloshing out of the spout, "I knew you didn't like me, but I didn't think I was _that_ repulsive to you." She sniffs daintily as she selects a packet of tea and pulls the honey down from the cabinet, pretending that her hands were not shaking.

(Because - well, it wasn't necessarily a lie, but Hermione knew it wasn't quite the truth either. They were friendly enough, one could almost even call them friends, though that didn't sit right either.

But it was infuriating and embarrassing that she'd noticed the other piece (though it hadn't bothered her for years, not until very very recently): Draco Malfoy was one for casual touches. A hand on Harry's shoulder after a round of quidditch pick-up, a nudge at Pansy's waist when she's taking too long to get up from the breakfast table, an arm slung around Millicent's shoulders as they walk around the Great Lake. She could recall vivid memories of him touching, or at least being close to, nearly everyone in their strange little cohort.

Everyone except her).

"You think I don't like you?" he stutters out, incredulous and a bit disappointed that his front has worked too well, has hurt his _mate_ \- because he knows Hermione Granger like the back of his hand, and this is not anger, this is hurt that stems from insecurity, that stems from wanting to be liked and not understanding why she has been set apart, yet again. Harry had told him, long ago, about how lonely she had been as a child and he never meant to hurt her, he just wanted to keep her _safe_ and give her a _choice_ and -

"Obviously."

Draco stands in silence for a moment, clenching his hands into fists to keep the talons in check, rolling his shoulders and practicing self-restraint in a way that hasn't been necessary since he was a child. "I don't dislike you," he says, finally, into the tense silence between them, sinking down onto the velvet couch.

She snorts, dunking in the tea cachet aggressively.

"Do you... dislike me?" Even asking it is painful. The possibility, even if it is one he has accidentally manufactured over the last seven years, wounds him deeply, even as he acknowledges that yes, he is a complete and total idiot.

Hermione plunks down a cup of tea in front of him, before dropping in two sugar cubes and settling onto the far side of the couch. "No," she says, begrudgingly, as if it were some long-kept secret that she would have preferred never to divulge, rather than something literally everyone knew but the two of them.

Draco sighs in relief. "Okay, then." He drinks the tea and hums a little at its sheer perfection; the witch had been watching him, knew him, even if she was reluctant to admit it, and his inner veela purrs at the thought. "And, for the record, I certainly don't think you're repulsive."

Hermione sips her tea and looks at him over the rim, brown eyes assessing him carefully. "Why do you treat me differently than the others, then?"

Draco freezes and chides himself - of course she would notice how careful he was. It had been over two years and he still hadn't figured out how to divulge his long-kept personal secrets or his long-kept secret obsession with her (she wrinkled her nose when she studied and came across something new, she ate fresh blueberries on her morning oats, she abhorred quidditch as a sport but seemed to enjoy the uniforms on a purely aesthetic level, a fact he had exploited several times already this term just to see that pretty flush steal over her cheeks when he returned to the common room).

(Again, not so secret as he thought, but well, young love makes fools of us all).

His birthday had come and gone, hers had come and gone, and he was still no closer to telling her.

Fuck.

"I -" He can't tell her the whole truth, not all at once, she'd _panic_ \- so instead, he tells a half-story about a half-truth.

"There's a sort of... curse, on the Malfoy family." _Truth_. "And I don't know what will happen if I touch you." _Lie_. "So I've been trying to be careful." _Half-truth._ He is careful with his touching but oh, he is lost on her and has been since he first saw her on the train, since she first beat him in Potions, since she looked at him with a careful grin and the Head Girl badge in her hand. He'd been falling in love with her, over and over again, for what felt like forever.

Hermione's eyes narrow as she sets her tea-cup down on the saucer and crosses her arms. "A curse."

Draco nods.

"That you've never once mentioned to me, or our friends."

He nods again, a little more slowly this time.

"Even though it might, ostensibly, put me into danger."

Draco grimaces, but nods a third time.

Hermione rolls her eyes as she picks up her tea once more. “I know you’re a veela, Draco.”

He tries very hard not to shiver at the sound of his name from her lips, and so it takes him a moment to process what she’s said. “You – you know – I’m a what?” he stutters out.

“A little bird told me a few months ago.”

Draco swears under his breath. “Pansy.”

Hermione nods, a decidedly Slytherin smirk on her lips, and he groans audibly into his hands, pushing his hands through his hair, aware that the infamous Malfoy restraint is in tatters in her presence, but unable to do a damn thing about it, not now, not when his inner veela is nearly prancing with excitement that his mate knows and that he could tell her the last thing – could complete the puzzle easily - with just one more sentence.

“Do you know,” she begins, crossing her legs and revealing a glimpse of thigh that is really quite unfair to his inner veela, who is quickly trying to reel his focus away from the conversation at hand to counting the freckles on her inner thigh, “that it is incredibly hard to find accounts of what veelas are like?”

“Like?” his brow furrows in confusion.

“The library is positively useless,” she says, derogatory in a way that she never imagined she would be to her haven. “All the books are either incredibly outdated or reference private diaries that, of course, I can’t read.”

Draco pauses and looks at her with narrowed eyes. “What are you reading about veelas for?”

She avoids his eyes and sips her tea and Draco cannot help himself from leaning an inch closer to her. “I – I’ve been trying to read about the effects of male veelas. Pansy – she told me some… things, but she’s attracted to _Ron_ , so who can trust her taste anyway, and besides, I’m not sure –“ she has begun talking faster and faster until he can hardly keep up.

“Ron?”

“Yes, they’re dating now, keep up,” she says, impatiently waving her hand at the look of disgust on his face.

“Gross.”

She made a matching face of discomfited displeasure. “Quite.”

“Well, Granger, you’ve got a veela right here.” He does his very best to keep his smile genuine, without a hint of a leer, despite the chanting in his head to trace his hands up her petite ankles to the indentations of her hips. “Why don’t you ask me about these effects?”

Hermione begins to shake her head vehemently, rising from the table as if to get more tea, though her cup is still more than half-full.

Draco can’t help himself and reaches out to catch the edge of her skirt, to tug gently. “I won’t bite, I promise,” he murmurs, making a promise to himself as much as her, watching her amber eyes flick between the fabric of her skirt held between his fingers and the disarming smile on his face.

She swallows nervously, and sits back down on the couch, crossing her ankles and turning to him.

“Go on, then.”

She takes a deep breath. “I feel this... dizziness, sometimes, and this – pull?” she says, placing a hand on her chest as if certain she could pin down the origin if only she thought about it hard enough. “And –“ she hesitates, before letting the words spill out of her. “Pansy called you pretty, but I find that to be a grand understatement.”

 _Mate_ , his inner-veela purrs. _She knows_.

Draco knows, suddenly, why his father had insisted on the meditation and focus and self-control lessons for his entire life. It is taking every iota of his self-control to remain calm, to remain steady and to keep his wings constrained where they ought to be.

He swallows tightly once, twice, as he reins himself in. “You want to know if the… effects, are unique to veelas?” He looks deep into her amber eyes as he continues. “Or, unique to you?” He is dancing too close to the edge of a cliff he was not prepared to throw himself over today, but he figures he might as well put all his hens in a basket. In for a sickle, in for a storm, as the Muggles say.

(Admittedly, there had been some parts of Muggle education that the Malfoys had not fared so well on. Idioms, primarily).

“Yes?” she answers, rubbing her hands together nervously.

“Then, yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes.”

“Malfoy,” she groans, and the laugh erupts from him without restraint. He hadn’t been able to tease her like this, not for a while, and it was lovely. And he wasn’t sure she’d be so receptive after he told her the full truth.

“Alright, alright,” he says as he settles back against the couch. “It’s like… you know about werewolves, right?”

“Well, yes. Professor Lupin gave us a rather thorough lecture after I showed him my essay.” The puzzled scrunch of her face is so adorable he can hardly contain himself.

“Who did they feel a pull around, a dizziness around?”

Her eyes widen as the pieces begin to connect. “Their mates. So you’re saying that veela…”

“Veela have mates, as well, if they are lucky enough to find them.”

Her amber eyes grow even larger. “Are you… lucky enough?” Hermione’s fidgeting had grown so excessive he wished to grab those hands, to settle their anxious movements, but instead finds himself relieved when she pushes them underneath her thighs.

Draco pushes his hands through his hair. “Lucky enough to find her first year, unlucky enough that I didn’t realize it was her until my fourth year.” He grimaces. “And terribly stupid enough to never figure out a way to tell her about any of this.”

“When you say _her_ , just to be crystal clear,” she says, voice pitched higher and higher with each word, “you mean –“

“You, Hermione. You’re my mate.” He wants to smile, wants to beam at her, but he is too afraid of what she will think - and how furious she will be that he has kept it from her, all these years. Even so, despite the fear, he can't rip his eyes from her wide-eyed gaze.

Hermione feels herself shiver as she processes the word that had fallen from his lips, as if he's been holding it back for years and years and apparently, he has. _Mate_. "Oh my god," she mutters, falling back onto the couch with her hand over her mouth, staring blankly ahead. ~~~~

"Are - are you alright?" he asks, and the concern bleeds through and has he always sounded like that when he talked to her? Has his voice always sounded like kindling to her?

She waves a hand in the air flippantly, as if her entire world hasn't been flipped on its head.

Mate.

She's Draco Malfoy's _mate_.

She never would have predicted this, never would have known to even consider it. She’d thought – you know, male veela, female particularly susceptible to his charms, maybe he has a crush on her, or something but this – _this_ -

It takes her a moment to wrap her mind around the idea.

(Seven-year-old Hermione had decided that she believed in love, but not soulmates, after a conversation with her unwitting parents about their love story. Helen Granger had been married before, to a man who died in the war to an airplane accident and believed that a person could love multiple people in their lifetime. If each person had only _one_ soulmate, she reasoned, her mother's love story wouldn't have been possible.

Seventeen-year-old Hermione Granger knows about magic and knows, now, that there is so much she doesn't know about what tethers people together, what holds them apart, what ties bind and sever and -

She'd been concerned about her jealousy towards Tonks, when she found out about her and Remus - but it wasn't jealousy that it was for Remus, though he was not an unattractive man, but that she _knew_ the person she fit with, the soul which would intertwine easily with her own without having to date and kiss and try again and again until it's not a failure but the right fit. The right person.

And what is a mate, except the answer to a question she hadn't known how to ask? It was like being handed the answers to a test, without having to take the test.

It is her favorite part about learning, but it is about another person, a relationship, a boy she hadn't ever known what to do with, a heart that had been beating rebelliously in her chest for years, now, hands that had ached to reach out for him.

The answer is _you_ , she wants to say).

Draco watches as her mind works, as her brain spins and the cogs turn and he is not a praying man, (as a rule, Malfoys do not pray, they believe in the firmness of destiny or some other rot), but he hopes, fervently, for it to all come out in his favor. In their favor.

Hermione blinks once, twice, before she looks over at him, placing her hands delicately in her lap. "Does everyone know?"

"Know? Uh, no, of course not -" They may have been enemies for years, but she can still tell when he is lying, and he is lying now. He caves immediately at the suspicion on her face. “Only the Slytherins, as far as I know.”

Hermione shifts until she is facing him, until her skirt is higher than it should be and she notices his eyes lingering on her hem but this seems more important. "So you found out I was your - your mate fourth year."

"My parents told me, then, though apparently I'd been obvious enough that they'd guessed it through my letters years before."

 _Oh._ Hermione's eyes widen and she sets that tidbit aside to contemplate at a later time. "Wait, is this why you started silently eating breakfast with me last year?"

He grimaces and nods, spreading his hands helplessly.

"And the library encounters? Debating books and theories?"

Draco tilts his chin and can't help the smirk on his lips. "Well, that was because you were wrong about the Grimlaw's theories and -"

Hermione snorts and begins to settle into another argument with him, a familiar pattern, something easy, but the glint in his eyes reminded her that they were on the threshold of discovery, of something new. Something wonderful and calming and thrilling and somehow, it still felt comforting. Mate.

"How long were you trying to tell me about all this?" she queries.

"About two years," he mumbles under his breath, as if she won't hear him, as if she isn't listening intently to him.

Hermione laughs lowly, wanting very much to tease him about his lack of Gryffindor courage but she can recognize the gleam of vulnerability in his eyes. The fear. So, instead, she lifts her tea for another calming sip and tries very hard to quell the smile playing across her lips. “I think,” she says, wonderingly, “I’m going to be very mad about that later, and we will probably fight about it, but I’m still processing the whole-” she waves her hand vaguely, “-mate thing.” 

“Fair enough.”

“Why didn’t you tell me, though? Any of it?” Her chin ducks down as a thought occurs to her, one that had been echoing in her ears since she realized he didn't touch her, didn't approach her, didn't treat her like he treated any of their friends. “Did you not… want me?”

“No,” he replies, vehemently, shaking his head and clenching his hands on his knees to prevent himself from reaching out for her. “I thought you’d hate me, for taking away your choice in the matter. I mean, you’re Hermione Granger, Brightest Witch of her age and gorgeous to boot, the best friend of Harry Potter and –“ He shrugs, as if it doesn’t matter to him at all, but truly, the movement looks rather painful. “You could have anyone you wanted. Why would _you_ want _me_?”

Hermione’s brow furrows in consternation. “Are you planning to force me to accept the bond?”

Draco’s head snaps up. “No, of course not.”

“Then you’re not taking away my choice,” she argues. “I can still choose this… bond between us, or – or not.”

A pained look passed over Draco’s face, and he pushed his hands through his hair before looking down at her, earnestly. “My mother would kill me if I did not say this outright. If you don’t want it, you do not have to accept the bond. I'll be... fine,” he says, through gritted teeth.

She nods thoughtfully, bringing her braid over her shoulder to toy with the ribbon at the end. “Is there a time limit, to accept the bond?”

Draco begins to shake his head, but he hesitates, and she notices, because of course she does.

“What?”

“Not a time limit to accept the bond, but there is another time limit you should know about.” He winces again. He’s really bollocksed this entire thing up turvy-topsy.

“Oh?”

“A veela comes into their power a full year earlier than wizarding counterparts – and if the bond has not been provoked and…” he trails off, wondering how to word this delicately.

“Consummated?” Learning about mates and bonds and the process had been a side-project of sorts, in the months after she found out about Professor Lupin and Tonks. Provocation, consummation, and a witnessed bonding by an official. There was a process, and it was very comforting to her that, of course, her side research project turned out to aid her in a strange moment of her life.

He nods gratefully, looking anywhere but at the smirk playing on her deliciously full lips. “A touch between the veela and their intended mate will – that is, it could be –“ he hesitates, but borrows the words his mother had used just a few years before, “a touch will prompt a flare in the bond and with that, desire that will not abate until after consummation.”

“A flare in –“ her amber eyes widen in understanding and she immediately moves an inch away from him on the couch. He winces, even as he does the same. “So, a touch would essentially force the bond?”

He nods, grimacing. “Archaic, I know.”

What he hadn’t expected was for her to sigh in unabashed relief. “ _That’s_ why you won’t touch me,” Hermione said quietly, with a flustered glance in his direction, as if afraid to admit that she’d ever noticed, that she’d ever wanted him to touch her, after all.

Draco shrugs helplessly. “Didn’t want to force it.”

“That was kind of you.”

“Cowardly, really.”

Hermione quirks an eyebrow.

“I should have just told you years ago.”

Hermione nods immediately, an impish grin on her rosy lips. “Yes.”

“Are you… going to be mad about that later too?”

She shrugs. “Probably.”

An aggrieved sigh escapes him. Gryffindors. Couldn’t just sneakily try to put a Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes potion in his morning coffee as revenge. No, they’d have to _talk_ about it. He chanced a fond glance in her direction. How awful.

"I - I read in the journals that veelas have wings. Is it true, then?” She hesitates, but turns towards him fully, asking shyly, “may I see them?"

"Granger," he admonishes, standing up and placing his hands on his hips, "you can't just _ask_ to see a veela's wings, it's not polite."

She blushes and it's adorable and he wants to watch pink bloom across her cheeks every day for the rest of his life. "I - I'm sorry, I didn't mean-"

"Relax, I'm just teasing." Draco unbuttons his jacket, rolls his shoulders, and unfurls his wings from his shoulders, easy as breathing, careful to situate himself so that he wouldn't knock anything from their too crowded bookshelves.

Hermione's amber eyes widen as he spreads his wings, keeping his hands in his pockets and his gaze fixed on hers. He had worried, once, that she would look upon him as if he was a research project, a new subject, something to learn about but from a distance.

But her eyes are filled with awe and wonder.

"Oh, Malfoy, they're _beautiful_ ," she whispers as she stands, walking towards him as if in a trance.

"I know." His trademark smirk is back, but it fades all too quickly as she reaches out a hand as if to touch the white feathers on the underside of his wings, the ones that look impossibly soft. He panics and retracts his wings, wincing at the suddenness.

“Can’t touch, remember?”

Hermione blushes and takes a step backwards, pulling her hands behind her and locking them together. “This may be… more difficult than I thought.”

Draco shoves his hands in his pockets in an effort to keep from stepping towards her, from reaching for her petite form and wrapping her in his arms, from kissing each freckle on her nose. He understands what she means. Now that the pull between them is acknowledged, it is even more challenging to keep his hands to himself, especially as she reaches for him.

“What about dinner?” The words fall between them and Draco is surprised that they’re from him.

“Like… a date?”

It is Draco’s turn to look at the bookshelves and keep his breathing steady. “If you wanted.”

“To – to get to know each other?”

He shrugs again, as if it doesn’t matter to him at all (an obvious lie, which he was not as good at as he thought, not with her). “Like I said, if you wanted.”

Hermione turns to the kitchen and makes herself another cup of tea, pouring water over chamomile leaves and breathing in deeply, as he pretends not to see the way her hands tremble. He cannot know that she is desperately trying to calm herself, trying to process everything he's told her, trying not to reach for him, to throw herself into his arms - really, it's a miracle she's resisted this far. 

“Do you not feel as if you know me?” Her voice is plaintive and small and she hates it, but she is puzzled. They've gone to school together for almost seven years, they've been enemies for most of those and friendly for some, and she feels that she knows him better than almost anyone, almost better than herself.

“I just – Granger, this is big, and you should have a chance to –“

“To decide if I want you?”

"To decide if you don't want to accept the bond,” he says, working to keep the bitterness out of his mouth, to not step towards her, even though his inner veela is roaring at him in indignation.

"Don't want it?" she asks, eyes cutting to him and narrowing.

"If you don't want to be my mate, if you don't want me to be yours."

Yours. The word falls off his tongue and she, for reasons she cannot yet name or explain, wants to hear him say it, over and over again. She sets down the tea cup with a quiet rattle, looking at the bookshelves and lingering on the way their book collections have intertwined, how she’s read his books as often as he’s read hers, remembering the times that he'd been late for class after being lost in a chapter at breakfast. The conversations that had challenged her, the projects they'd worked on, the arguments with friends that he'd diffused, the way he would talk to her after Quidditch matches, when the rest of the school was caught up in the aftermath and the replaying of the match - and he would quietly discuss a book, an essay, the weather, anything she wanted that didn't deal with a bloody broomstick. The way he looked for her before Slytherin's match the month before, grey eyes seeking out her own and offering a half-smile before he soared into the air.

Yours.

"I want it." Her voice is a quiet, unconscious whisper, and it tumbles from her mouth without her direct pre-approval, though she can taste the truth as easily as the chamomile and honey, still staring at the bookshelves, as if confessing long-held secrets.

His eyes widen dramatically, and he practically throws himself back onto the couch to keep from striding to her, from kneeling in front of her, from kissing the delicate soft skin of her palms.

"I want you," she continues, turning to face him. "You're infuriating, intelligent, handsome, and incredibly attractive." A smug grin crosses her face, even as her eyes are laughing. “And I have it on good authority it’s not just a veela thing.”

Draco can't help himself, can't help the smile spreading across his cheeks, so wide his cheeks will be sore. "You want me?" he asks, voice so full of hope.

"Obviously. Do you want me?" she asks, grinning broadly, and it is an answer all its own, and he is answering before she finishes the question.

" _Yes,_ " he breathes. His inner veela is roaring in approval, and he must close his eyes and take several deep breaths before he is able to wrest himself back under control. He is unable to do so.

When he opens his eyes, they are bright silver and fixated on the woman in front of him, standing much closer than she'd ever been before, close enough that her scent is intoxicating and he is drowning in her confident, defiant fire-whiskey gaze.

"You need - Hermione, if I touch you, we'll - "

"Lust that will not abate, isn't that what you said?"

He nods, miserably rubbing his hands together in his lap.

"Are you... opposed to the idea of being with me?" she asks, raising an imperious brow as she toys with her tie, a look in her eyes he doesn't recognize but knows, somehow, that it means mischief and trouble and he should run far away. (He wouldn't, not even if he wanted to - which he doesn't). 

He shakes his head. "No, no, that's not it -"

"It's Friday night, Draco" she offers, coyly, as she loosens her tie and tosses it onto the floor and that combined with the sound of his name rolling from her lips is enough to make him come undone. "I know we’re both ahead of our schoolwork.” She winks at him and he feels as if he’s about to keel over in shock. “We've got time."

"I - " Draco is completely speechless, which will only occur three times in his life (all of which involve Hermione, in one way or another).

Hermione smiles at him, a genuine, true beaming smile – one that speaks of happiness and hope and wistfulness and secret dreams coming to fruition - and something in him clicks into place, and he grins in return, nodding slightly at what she intends.

Mate _._

_Mine._

_Yours_.

She steps forward and places her soft hand on his cheek.

-

They show up to breakfast a Monday morning in November with tousled hair, easy grins, and holding hands. 

Filius, disgruntled at the early loss, sends Minerva and Severus bottles of the golden-hued whiskey, with which they merrily toast teenage indiscretions and the winnings it has brought them over the years.

Pansy happily pockets her winnings, Ron accuses her of cheating, and the entire table of seventh years devolves into bickering. No one notices as Draco and Hermione slip away to snog in an abandoned corridor before Arithmancy.

-

When Draco Malfoy is officially bonded with his mate, Hermione Granger, it is a sunny Saturday in May, and the first thing he notices is her.


End file.
